A cultural experience
by zomgitsalaura
Summary: War for Cybertron - Jazz's latest assignment looks like it's going to be fun. Eventual Prowl/jazz if people like it enough for me to continue
1. Chapter 1

**_I'm reading Transformers Exodus at the moment, the novel tie-in to the War for Cybertron game, and it's actually pretty good x3_**

Brain bunny has been gnawing so have some fic.

A breem is appoximately eight minutes.  
A joor is approximately six and a half hours.  
An orn is approximately thirteen days or two weeks.  
A vorn is approximately eighty-three years.  


* * *

His caste, in Jazz's own personal opinion, had to be the best on Cybertron. Having been pegged for the job within moments of emerging from the well of all-sparks, the cultural investigator had to admit that any desk-jockey career would have driven him insane in record time.

In fact, he thought, legs propped up on the desk as he sprawled listlessly in his chair (well it wasn't HIS chair but that wasn't the point) that he probably would have gone postal within half a joor. What in Primus name was taking his boss so long, did he get lost between the archives and here?

Jazz huffed, suppressing the urge to fiddle with the mechs personal computer. Getting here from the archives wasn't THAT hard, Jazz had to go there practically every orn, usually taking a detour to stop in on Orion Pax so he could get his friend to direct him in the right direction.

The data clerk was a wiz at navigating the data grids and usually saved Jazz ages of searching through the archives for this or that little tidbit. Speaking of Orion Pax, Jazz mused, he must remember to snag the lower caste mech after work the next time he was over that way and drag him to Maccadams Oil house again. Poor mech didn't get out NEARLY enough for Jazz liking, always plugged into the bank of monitors at his station and listening to the air waves.

Being a cultural investigator, Jazz was almost never standing still. Always hopping from one assignment to the next in order to experience as much of the lifestyle of whatever particular caste he was tasked with documenting on that occasion.

His job gave him a nice degree of freedom, a freedom that he had recently used while he was in Kaon in order to get a closer look at this 'Megatron' character. The gladiator was brutal, he frowned, definitely not someone you'd want to meet in a dark alley.

That was what was so interesting about his job, the caste system usually led mechs to not interacting outside of their immediate peer group, thousands of vorn of this existence inevitably giving each tier in the system a unique culture and set of beliefs.

His personal favourite thus far having been the artisans, being tasked with recording their Prima's day celebrations had been fantastic and he had thoroughly enjoyed soaking up atmosphere (not to mention the good food and music). Needless to say that that particular report had taken a fair while to hand in, the inhabitants of crystal city tended to be rather generous that time of the vorn and he had been given many opportunities to catalogue their culture on a first hand basis.

Jazz practically sagged with relief when the office door finally cycled open, giving his superior a cheeky grin in response to the exasperated expression he received.

"Wha'?" Jazz continued to grin "This chair is MUCH more comfortable than tha' one" he waved at the seat on the other side of the desk, legs swinging sideways and off the edge of the desk before he stood and made his way over to the larger mech still standing in the doorway.

"So, what have ya got for me this time?" he asked, holding his hand out for the datapad clutched in his bosses hand.

"Look at it yourself" the mech gave an exasperated sigh and steered Jazz out of his office. Door closing with a swish and beeping loudly as it was locked from the opposite side. The gray and white mech standing where he was left and thumbing through the digital pages on the pad, visored optics scanning the text.

"Blah blah blah Praxus, heh, not too close t' home then." He muttered, starting off down the hall, skipping over the official papers he would need to show upon arrival to his destination. "East side enforcers, cool and apparently" he grinned, signing off his acceptance to the new assignment and electronically sending it to the data clerks for filing "I get to play with these guys for a couple orn."

* * *

"What! No!" Prowl practically glared at his superior, pointed sensory wings held high in agitation.

Stakeout just sat back calmly, rotating his computer screen so that his underling could see the official encryption that had been placed on the file. "Not my choice or yours for that matter." The blue captain shrugged "You're the only mech we have even CLOSE to this guy spec wise so you were pegged to sparkling-sit him for the duration of his assignment."

Prowl frowned again, confirming that the file was indeed legitimate before sitting back down. "Fine, so what am I supposed to do with him?" he asked, arms crossing under the front of his alt mode.

"Well," Stakeout shrugged "he's supposedly compiling a report on our caste so take him on patrols, assign him some quarters, humour him a bit and then we can send him home to Iacon. He is more or less an enforcer for the duration of his assignment so you two should be working pretty closely."

"Oh, fantastic" the black and white mech grumbled, the last thing he needed at the moment was more work to do, he thought, remembering the small pile of reports still needing to be filled from the recent string of gang activity in his sector.

"So, where is this 'investigator' if I might ask _sir_" he stressed the last word, displeasure at the increased work load evident in the posture of his doorwings.

Digging through his desk for a few moments, Stakeout pulled out a spare pad and downloaded the file with all the details onto it before handing it to the irate enforcer "You need to collect him from shuttle pad beta-12 in about a joor. He should have all the necessary forms with him. You're free to go." He waved at the door, spinning his computer monitor back around to face him as Prowl stalked out of the office.

Winglets stiff, the black and white enforcer made his way back to his desk. Plugging into his console so he could get some work done on the stack that had managed to grow by several pads since he left, he initiated his in-built tactical simulator and began inputting the data, trying to determine if there were any links or patterns between the recent strings of gang related attacks that seemed to be sweeping the lower levels of the city.

Time seemed to pass quickly as he was working, his chronometer alerting him all too soon that he needed to go collect their 'guest' from the docking stations. Throwing the last completed report into his out box he stood and locked up his work station, heading outside and flipping down into his alt mode with a flurry of moving parts before pulling out in the direction of his target.

* * *

**Honestly, this wasn't even beta'd so i PERSONALLY reckon there are thousands of stupid mistakes x3  
feel free to point them out brutally**

should i write more? I want to but if it sucks that bad i think i'll just leave it here and save you from my literary fail 


	2. Chapter 2

**Uhhhh, Ok. You convinced me. Have another chapter.**

**Once again, I have no-one to beta read this stuff so it's probably full of errors. Sorry xD**

**Time reference can be found in the first chapter :D**

* * *

He was late, traffic on the main roadways heavily being congested as the second duty cycle of the joor ended and mechs clogged the transportation arteries making their way to and from their assigned posts. The shuttle had landed mere moments before the enforcer had pulled into the compound, the black and white mech having hoped to simply pick this 'Jazz' up straight away and take him to the quarters he had been assigned for the duration of his stay.

Carefully manoeuvring around the throng of mechs exiting the large inter-city class transport, winglets held high and close to his body to prevent collisions, Prowls scanned the crowd for his target. Not spotting the mech he was looking for as the group thinned out he trotted up the ramp and peered inside, frowning when he saw the mech he was looking for leaning over the console and chatting amicably with the view screen.

Upon seeing Prowls displeased face in the reflection of the screen, the enforcer's official marking quite visible on his shoulders, he gave the console a friendly pat. Turning from the digital representation of the mech whose alt mode he was currently standing in to grin at the chevroned mech who had come to collect him.

"Ah'm guessing you're th' welcoming committee then?" he strode forward, bringing one hand down onto Prowls shoulder in greeting once he reached the door and earning himself an affronted expression.

Taken aback by the visored mech forwardness, Prowl removed the hand from his shoulder guard with a shrug. "Yes, I am. My designation is Prowl, Enforcer level 4, assigned to the tactical response and investigation division."

"Jazz, nice t' meet ya" he replied, herding a rather stunned Prowl towards the ramp "C'mon, off. Poor mech has another two cities t' get too t'day."

Stumbling slightly as he was literally pushed out of the shuttle, doorwings shifted high and arching sideways away from the slightly smaller mechs hand on his back causing his balance to falter slightly, Prowl had to resist the urge to just toss the visored upper caste mech across the landing platform. Remembering the little note that his superior had left scrawled on the bottom of his orders, 'be nice', sure, it was easy enough to say that when one wasn't getting shoved around by a civilian.

Once far enough away from the shuttle, Jazz finally released Prowl. Still grinning widely as he peered around the view of Praxus the platform offered, he zoomed in on the western sectors that housed a large majority of the artisan caste. The skilled crafters of metals and glass who were the preferred creators of decorative additions to the noble caste alt modes and homes, living among the bases of crystal spires jutting from the depths of the planet. Their own dwellings often cut into the shining natural towers that inspired the design of the entire city.

The artificially created crystal towers that were scattered throughout the city were mostly populated by the science guild. Though they seemed to lack the lustre of the natural spires, the glittering towers were the main feature of the city, lending it the nickname of the 'crystal city'.

"Hey Prowl. Y' ever seen th' towers durin' their Prima day celebrations? They do this cool thin' where all th' houses are lit from th' inside with thousands 'f different coloured lanterns. Makes'em shine from th' inside out" he smiled a little wistfully, remembering his time being hosted within the beautiful structures.

"From a distance…" Prowl was a little floored by the visored mechs enthusiasm, he was a little odd to say the least "I'm based on the opposite end of the city which is, incidentally, where we need to go now."

Jazz hummed, shooting the spires one last look before turning and heading towards the road. Handing Prowl the necessary documents as the continued in root mode in the direction of the designated transformation zone at the very front of the landing hub.

"So, where'm ah stayin'?" he asked, watching Prowls doorwings out of the corner of his visor, fascinated at how they twitched in counterpoint to his emotions.

The sensory wings flicked outwards in frustration, Jazz smiling to himself in quiet amusement as they did so "I do not know yet" Prowl frowned "that is something that we need to organise back at the station."

Jazz raised an optic ridge under the visor, catching the subtle hostility from this mech but showing no visible sign of it. Perhaps he was just not comfortable with interacting outside his caste; it happened quite a lot in Jazz's experience.

"Uh, right, sounds like a plan." He shrugged, flipping down into his alt mode, the glowing red light-bars around his canopy flaring brightly as he talked. "Lead th' way officer. Or am ah going t' have to find my way aroun' m'self?"

Following suit, Prowl transformed and pulled out onto the road, sensors trained on the mech behind him as he navigated through the traffic. Opening his comms, Prowl directed the signal towards Jazz as they found themselves stuck in the pre-shift congestion /I am assuming that you will be housed in the enforcer barracks./

/Eh, works f' me. Easier t' watch you guys 'f ah'm close, y'know?/ Jazz replied, finally turning off into a side street and off the winding highway.

* * *

The going was boring, buildings and streets all more or less the same at ground level save for the occasional shop selling paint jobs or energon confections. That is, it WAS boring until the roar of over-modded engines and the squeal of tires as breaks were applied echoed down the street in the direction they were travelling.

Jazz broke out of his thoughts sharply and just managed to catch the sight of two heavily modified racing alt modes swiftly changing direction and heading down an alleyway. A second later, he was startled as the light bars adoring Prowls doors and roof lit up in a bright strobing pattern before the enforcer barked a quick 'stay here' and tore off after the speeding mechs. Siren wailing loud enough to raise Primus himself as Prowl zipped off down the alleyway.

Never one to pass up an opportunity to have some fun, Jazz more or less ignored the order and sped off as well. Taking another route in the general direction the threesome had headed.

Transforming swiftly to root mode, the two illegally modded mechs attempted to duck into another narrow alleyway, one of the yelping and impacting the ground with a clatter of metal against metal as a white and black blur tackled him from behind.

"You're under arrest for" Prowl panted, attempting to pull cooler air into his internal systems "illegal racing and evading the law." Snapping stasis cuffs onto the stunned criminal as he called for backup, lamenting the fact that this ones partner was swiftly making his escape as his friend lay incapacitated.

Shifting his grip on the pinned racer, Prowl hauled him to his pedes just as another resounding clang echoed from out on the street. Pushing his captive along, he was surprised upon exiting out onto the street to find none other than the mech he would be watching for a good majority of the next several orn practically perched on his escaped criminals back.

The latter squirming ineffectively as the visored mech dug a knee into his back, one of the racers arms pulled backwards in an immobilising position that both prevented him from transforming and throwing the grinning Jazz off.

"Hi Prowl, I think you were lookin' for this one?" Jazz blinked over his shoulder, grinding his knee a little harder into the squirming mechs back. "Y'know, a set of those cuffs'd be nice right abou' now."

Prowl huffed, turning up the cuff settings on his own captive to ensure he couldn't run away and set him against a nearby wall. "I thought I told you to stay put" he sighed in exasperation, this Jazz mech was already well on the way to giving him a nervous tick.

Pulling out a second set of cuffs and snapping them onto the still struggling racer pinned beneath the white mechs knee he flicked his sensory panels. Blinking sideways as several sets of strobing lights rounded the corner at the end of the street, heralding the arrival of the reinforcements he requested.

"Yeah, but it's mah job t' observe you guys" Jazz shrugged, rotation his shoulders and stretching his neck. "Not t' mention that tha' was pretty fun too" he grinned, offlining one side of his visor in a wink.

Groaning, Prowl brought a hand up to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose, currently convinced that this mech was either going to offline himself within the next few orn or kill Prowl trying.

* * *

**Reviews are love; also, feel free to point out any glaringly obvious errors I may have missed.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry this took so long xD**

**Been writing it after uni lectures and it took a while. **

**Have to thank my wonderfull beta xxsomeoneelsexx. Eels is made of awesome and win x3**

**

* * *

**

"Stop that."

"Stop what?" Jazz grinned, spinning in his chair to peer at Prowl over the computer monitor.

Prowl leaned sideways, levelling his best disapproving glare in the investigator's direction. "You're humming, it is rather distracting."

The predominantly white mech laughed, reaching over the desk to flick the cables currently snaked out from under Prowls helm. "Ah'm bored—"he flicked again— "An' this is the fourteenth time you've run those numbers and gotten the same result. Whatever happened to the chasin' down of bad guys or gatherin' evidence from the crime scenes?"

Prowl flinched and slapped Jazz's hand away, disconnecting from the monitor. "You have been watching far too many crime dramas," he sighed. The cables retracted beneath his plating with a soft snick. "One officer does not do all of that work by himself. The entertainment vids condense many mechs into one character for simplicity's sake."

Jazz pouted, dropping his chin on top of his crossed arms as he leaned on Prowls desk "So…. yer just gonna sit 'ere doin' paperwork fer the whole time ah'm here?"

If this was true, Jazz was quite sure he was going to offline himself from boredom. Sure, they had given him some paperwork of his own to fill out, mainly pertaining to his apprehension of the illegal racer, but that had only kept him occupied for a little while.

Jazz was idly spinning the wheels on his lower legs when a mech behind him started chuckling, taking him by surprise. Prowl tsat up straighter and flicked his sensory wings in a strange salute towards his superior, something that Jazz subtly took note of.

Stakeout leaned over the cubicle dividing wall, holding out a datapad to Prowl and nodding to their 'guest'. "Actually, you DO have to go observe some crime scene investigation." He grinned at Prowl. "Our good investigator here needs to see ALL the different facets of the process, not just your primary function, otherwise he can't do his job properly."

Jazz barely held in a whoop of glee, grinning widely as Prowl read over the pad.

"A murder in tower beta-12?" Prowl huffed air through his vents. "Shouldn't the forensics team be dealing with this?" he asked, scanning through what information they already had.

Stakeout just grinned, leaning further over the cubical wall to pat the black and white enforcer on the shoulder. "You and I both know you're perfectly qualified to oversee this investigation." He laughed. "If you'd TAKE the damn job you'd have my position for Primus' sake."

"Get his job?" Jazz cocked his helm to the side "but, _this_ is yer job isn' it?"

It was almost unheard of for mechs to gain promotion from their initial job placement without help from the senate. Jazz himself had literally been doing the same job, albeit a very NICE job, since he was sparked.

"Prowl here has the highest scores in literally every training simulation we have." Stakeout jerked a thumb in Prowls direction, the officer pointedly ignoring the two mechs gleefully invading his workspace. "We even had to make NEW ones for him. He won't take the promotion though, because he enjoys being in tactical too much."

Shoving one of his desk drawers shut with a snap, Prowl transferred the data from his simulations onto a fresh pad and dropped it onto the top of his 'out' pile. "There is nothing wrong with liking my job, thank you very much."

"True," Jazz grinned, tapping the nearest of Prowl's wings as he stood, trying to get the mech moving.

Prowl twitched at the hit, shooting Jazz an affronted look and fluttering the wing joins as though trying to physically shake off the feel of Jazz's hand on his wing. Like most mechs, Jazz didn't realise just how sensitive the appendages were, and tended to inadvertently grope them.

"Move it. Go." Prowl harried Jazz along with a hand to the small of his back, taking Stakeout's teasing with good humour after many years of experience with the higher ranking mech.

Jazz, however, was still snickering to himself. "They had ta make NEW simulations for ya? Jus' how qualified are ya?" he grinned, nearly tripping over his own pedes in Prowl's haste.

"I am qualified enough." Prowl rolled his optics. "They do not mind though and seem to enjoy making me fill in for other mechs when they are short."

"Ah, sounds fun. MUCH better than bein' behind that desk all day, in ma opinion." Jazz replied, twisting out of Prowls hold to walk beside him.

"Well that's YOUR opinion." The enforcer flicked his wings in a dismissive gesture before stepping out of the building, being careful not to hit himself on the doors as he went. "You must remember that while we are the crime scene you are NOT to touch anything, move anything, or disrupt the forensic teams."

"Ah know, ah know." Jazz waved his hand, the delicate components disappearing beneath his armour as he dropped down into his alt mode.

"Blah blah 'yer here t' observe an' write yer report blah blah.' Heard it all b'fore Prowler, ah've been doin' it a long time." He teased, red light-bars adorning his alt mode flickering as he talked.

"Of course, how could I forget" Prowl deadpanned back, dropping down into his alt mode as well and pulling out into the street, scanners sweeping behind him briefly to make sure Jazz was still following him.

/Just make sure _you_ do not,/ he commed once they were onto the transport artery, smoothly switching lanes until they were pointed in the direction of the fake crystal tower that was their destination.


	4. Chapter 4

The investigation turned out to be far more boring than Jazz had been led to believe. Most, if not all, of the evidence had been scanned and photographed before they had even gotten there.

On the bright side though, they had been met outside the trashed apartment, which also doubled as the terminated mechs lab, by an incredibly enthusiastic young officer.

The small, official enforcer vehicle alted mech happily keeping Jazz company as Prowl oversaw the amazingly dull task of removing the occupants offline frame.

Apparently the young enforcer was one of the newest batch of sparks extracted from Vector Sigma and had managed to worm his way up through the ranks rather quickly with the help of his brother units.

Some strange quirk in their programming managed to wind their sparks together from activation much to the confusion of the supervising medics. D_espite_ the differences in their assigned caste and function they somehow manage to form an incredibly effective team. Each of them were often 'borrowed' by the cities emergency services in order to save citizens in need.

"Is everything going smoothly Streetwise?" Prowl asked, exchanging a quick doorwing flick with the smaller officer.

The younger mechs doors far shorter in order for them to fold beneath his alt mode roof if needed as his function often required him to crawl through small spaces that would otherwise catch on the sensitive appendages.

"Yes sir, um" he dug through his subspace, withdrawing the report as well as the datachip containing the hologram scan file of the entire room. "Is there anything else you need sir?" 

Streetwise chirped brightly, absently scratching at a patch of noticeably paler scar tissue protruding from under his visor. Surprisingly enough, Jazz found he was unable to see the outline of the other mechs optics from beneath the strip of sensory crystal. Something usually quite easy to do with the modifications Jazz had made to his own visor.

"No, this should be quite enough. How goes your recovery?" Prowl hummed, flipping absently through the first few pages of the report and adding his own observations to the margins.

"Uh, well enough sir" Streetwise chuckled nervously "Aid is still trying to work out a way to replace the main optical processors without frying my memory core."

Jazz balked his own optical centres a little glitchy themselves but that was more a programming issue than hardware. "Wait what?"

"Streetwise here is recovering from a recent attack on the precious metal stores in the inner city" Prowl jerked a thumb in the sheepish enforcers direction, Streetwise's doorwings wiggling from side to side expressively.

"Uh, yeah" he shrugged "I got, um, shot…. Completely slagged my optics and melted what was left to my memory core. According to the medics I'm lucky to be alive."

Well, that would explain not being able to see through the visor, Jazz thought to himself. The entire top portion of the visor was probably a solid piece set directly over the inoperative optics in order to contain the circuitry needed to intemperate the visual signals.

"Aid did a pretty good of reconstructing my face though" Streetwise grinned "Only way you'd know anything happened is the scarring from the nanite damage."

"Thankyou Streetwise" Prowl sighed, closing the report and dropping it into his subspace for later before pressing Jazz back towards the entrance "If you begin to feel ill again feel free to end your shift early."

Jazz squawked, giving an exaggerated flail and waving at the young officer as they rounded the corner out of sight.

"Nice kid. Why we leavin' so soon though?" The predominantly white mech trotted forwards a bit and turned on his rear pede stabiliser until her was walking backwards.

Prowl just frowned, waving Jazz off with an exasperated air. "This is just the latest in a long series of deaths in the scientist ranks" he hummed "We need to get back to base so I can check this data over _properly."_

"Oh, uh, right, quick question." Jazz grinned "Do y' think ah could take a look at th' scan 'e gave ya? Y'know, for my report."

The Praxun officer stopped dead in his tracks, cocking his helm to the side and twitching a wing. "Huh… that… actually isn't mine to decide. You'll have to ask Stakeout. If not this one there will be at the very _least_ some demonstration scans you can procure."

"Aw damn." The white mech pouted, crossing his arms over his chest as they finally exited the towering crystal structure.

Truthfully, Jazz didn't want the scan for the report. Upon arriving he had only managed a quick glance at the crime scene before he was bustled outside again. The mechs in the apartment already bagging any evidence they could for examination at a later date.

What stuck Jazz the most about the room was the sheer _brutality _of the crime. Energon and vital fluids seemed to have been sprayed like a macabre art instillation across the entirety of the room making it rather obvious that the victim was offlined in a rather brutal fashion, even if their remains had already been recovered and mostly removed.

The last time he'd seen anything even _half_ as brutal as the scene he just witnessed were the fights regularly conducted in the gladiatorial pits of Kaon. The fact that something so violent had occurred in the tightly regulated, upper class sectors of the crystal city was incredibly off putting.

**Blurp, sorry.**

**Haven't written this one in a loooong time. My bad. I got buried under university for a couple months buy now I'm **_**mostly**_** on holidays.**

**Anyway, I proof read this as much as I could, feel free to point out any glaringly obvious errors. **


End file.
